Everything We Know About Ghost of Yotei

Sucker Punch's Ghost of Tsushima was released in 2020 and introduced players to the world of samurai and stealth in the 13th Century and after four long years, PlayStation has finally announced a sequel, Ghost of Yotei. Featuring a female protagonist, a new mountainous landscape to traverse, and all set in a new time period 300 years after the events of the first game.

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Ghost of Yotei will be released in 2025 on PlayStation 5

The exact release date is still unknown, but Sony has confirmed that Ghost of Yotei will arrive on PlayStation in 2025. Sony tends to favor fall release windows – see God of War, The Last of Us 2, Spider-Man: Miles Morales – and it wouldn't be a shock for Ghost of Yotei to follow the same pattern. Expect the game to be a PlayStation 5 exclusive at first, but as with big Sony titles like God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Zero Dawn, it will almost certainly get a PC release at some point in the future too.

Ghost of Yotei has a new protagonist

The Ghost of Tsushima sequel will start a new origin story with Atsu, a young woman seeking revenge. Details on her story are few and far between, but the trailer did reveal some interesting clues about the newest warrior to take on the mask of The Ghost.

For a start, Atsu can dual-wield katana, a talent that was never available to Jin Sakai in the first game. It could suggest that Atsu might prefer the direct approach to the stealthy methods that Jin could use to avoid and assassinate enemies. For all you accuracy fans out there, this detail actually lines up with historical records that suggest dual wielding wasn't a common practice in Japan during the time period in which Jin lived, but in Atsu's 17th-century world, the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi created the "two heavens as one" niten'ichi technique with two blades.

While some fans reacted with surprise at the gender of Ghost of Yotei's new samurai, female warriors called Onna-musha appeared in Japanese history as early as 1180. You can read more about on how Ghost of Yotei gets history right here.

There's a new setting for Ghost of Yotei

The name gives away the new setting for the game, but for those of us that skipped a few geography classes Yotei refers to Mount Yotei – translated somewhat unglamorously as "sheep-hoof mountain" – a volcano located in northern Japan. Specifically on Hokkaido, the second-biggest Japanese island, which would have been called Ezo in Atsu's time.

“When we started working on a sequel, the first question we asked ourselves is ‘What is the DNA of a Ghost game?’” Creative Director Nate Fox told The New York Times. “It is about transporting the player to the romance and beauty of feudal Japan.” The Sucker Punch team visited a number of locations in Japan for research, including Shiretoko National Park where Fax made recordings of the ambient sounds to take back to the studio.

“Inside the park, you have to watch a video telling you about the dangers of bears,” Fox said. “Being in this incredibly beautiful park with jagged cliffs and water, yet all the time being aware there were dangerous bears, was electrifying. We strive to bring that into the video game — that feeling of danger.”

Ghost of Yotei is set in 1603, according to the PlayStation Blog. That's 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima and a period when Ezo was home to the indigenous Ainu people and still outside the control of Japan. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1603 is marked the Tokugawa shogunate becoming the government of Japan after the Battle of Sekigahara.

Ghost of Yotei is Sucker Punch's first game built completely for PS5

Ghost of Tsushima was notable for the way its incredible landscapes looked and felt as you explored the island, and it sounds as if we can expect the same from Ghost of Yotei.

"This is also Sucker Punch’s first game built from the ground up for PlayStation 5, and we’re excited to build on the visual foundation we established in Ghost of Tsushima by making the world feel even more real," said Andrew Goldfarb, Senior Communications Manager at Sucker Punch Productions in a blog post.

"We have massive sightlines that let you look far across the environment, whole new skies featuring twinkling stars and auroras, even more believable movement from wind on grass and vegetation, and more improvements we’ll share in the future. Our new setting also gives us the opportunity to introduce new mechanics, gameplay improvements, and even new weapons."